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Iraqi women and children, receiving humanitarian aid. Photo: OWFI.There’s
been a pattern to the whirlwind first 100 days of the Trump presidency.
In the face of multiple wars and famine threats, Trump responds on two
fronts. First, he exacerbates problems, and then he eviscerates
potential solutions.

It’s
like setting a house on fire, while draining the water from the fire
truck. And for those trapped in the blaze, local grassroots women’s
groups are often the only first responders they can count on.

In
many of these communities, it’s grassroots women’s groups that are
stepping into the breach to provide life-saving assistance. For
example, when thousands of families fled Mosul from ISIS violence and US
airstrikes, they found shelter with the Organization of Women’s Freedom
in Iraq, which set up safe houses and distributed humanitarian aid.

Such critical work has globally been dealt a severe blow by Trump’s global gag rule,
which strips US funding from healthcare facilities in poor countries
that so much as mention abortion rights. This, in combination with
Trump’s defunding of the UNFPA,
a major reproductive health and family planning agency, will cause
needless death and suffering among the world’s poorest women.

Nicaraguan clinic nurse. Photo: Elizabeth Rappaport.

This
is not the only burning crisis that women first responders are
mobilising to address. The uptick in US violence comes as international
aid agencies warn that famine is about to overtake places like Yemen,
Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria, endangering the lives of over 20 million people.

In
Somalia, as people migrate to find food amidst worsening famine and
drought, there is greater risk that they will be mistaken for fighters or killed as a result of loosened restrictions on civilian casualties.
Meanwhile, in Kenya where many Somalis have sought refuge, women first-responders are sourcing food aid from local women farmers, in a win-win
that saves lives while sustaining local economies.

It is as if the Trump administration is hoping that we won’t be able
to walk and chew gum at the same time.

That we won’t grasp the connections between
fundamentally dangerous policies and their real-life impacts. That we
won’t register the gulf between US rhetoric and reality. That we won’t
be able to resist militarism, environmental destruction and humanitarian
disaster, and ramp up support for humanitarian relief – like that
spearheaded by women in places rocked by disaster and conflict.

But
we can do all of this. We can support the work of grassroots women’s
organizations providing necessary humanitarian aid while calling for
policies that uphold peace and justice.

We
can call out false attempts to wrap destructive actions in humanitarian
ideals, and we can call for support and welcome to refugees and
migrants.

We
can condemn war crimes and rights violations by all states, we can
condemn the US’s own needless killing of civilians, and we can call for a
halt to US military escalation.

The
multiplicity of harms can feel overwhelming. That’s because no single
person can take it all on. What we need instead is thoughtful
coordination among those resisting Trump’s agenda – in the next 100 days
and beyond – to support each other’s efforts to douse the fires he spreads and to build back from the ashes together.

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